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ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS DESMOND TUTU AND FORMER PRESIDENT FW DE KLERK PETITION PRESIDENT KGALEMA MOTLANTHE TO APPOINT ARMS DEAL JUDICIAL COMMISSION BY 10 DECEMBER 2008

A joint letter signed by Nobel Peace laureates Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk has been delivered to President Kgalema Motlanthe’s office on 2 December 2008. It reads as follows:

Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Arms Deals

1. We write to you as concerned citizens and in conjunction with the organizations listed in annexure A, all of whom are deeply troubled about the state of the rule of law, accountability and constitutionality in our country. We address you with the request that you appoint an independent and public judicial commission of inquiry into the arms deals in terms of your responsibilities under section 84 (2)(f) of the Constitution. » read more

As you’ll recall, Trevor Manuel and I on June 12 reached a temporary settlement with the Court’s approval. Unfortunately, he has not followed through. I was obliged to file documents within 15 days from 8 June, so I have this morning filed amendments to my pleas and counterclaims in his defamation case 5156/08 against me.

The demand is the latest salvo in a battle between the two men that has run over several years.

It is made in papers Crawford-Browne said he filed today in the Cape High Court, where Manuel is currently pursuing an application to permanently gag Crawford-Browne from accusing him of arms deal corruption. » read more

Following Thursday’s hearing in court, I have this morning filed a notice of dismissal, plea and counterclaims on Trevor Manuel’s application to gag me, in summary:

1. his application is an abuse of the court as he is trying to cloak the cover-up of the arms deal scandal with spurious legal propriety,
2. my criticisms are fair, accurate and in the public interest, and therefore not defamatory,
3. the summons is an abuse of constitutional rights of freedom of expression,
4. by his own admission, he has no prospect of financial remedy,
5. the judgement in case 9987/2001 was a miscarriage of justice due to his failure to comply with the discovery order in March 2003,
6. his conduct in the arms deal saga is inconsistent with numerous constitutional obligations. » read more

This is to advise that my case against Trevor Manuel and Maria Ramos for non delivery of documents will come to court tomorrow, Thursday 15 May, before Judge Dlodlo. I don’t yet know which court room.

(With all the holidays of the past two months there have been predictable delays in court. This case involves procuring necessary documents from the respondents for answering the case that Manuel brought against me.)

I intend to make a statement tomorrow; please look for that in the press. (I may also run an excerpt from the statement here.)

As you will have learned, the Minister of Finance got his interim gagging order this morning, and I have been ordered to remove defamatory material from my blogsite. The order stipulates that it “is not directed to stop [me] from participating in a debate of immense public importance”, and [the Minister] is “ordered to launch his action within 20 days.”

The order is not unexpected, and becomes an opportunity to reopen the whole arms deal corruption scandal. In response to the Minister’s action, we will unload the evidence into the court records where the evidence can speak for itself. » read more

The following letter was first published in the Cape Argus under the headline, “The subs were never intended to go to sea”. Sections that the Argus deleted have been restored and marked as such.

That the SA Navy’s shiny new submarines lie idle (Cape Argus, December 5) because of a severe shortage of skilled staff comes as no surprise. The then Auditor General reported to Parliament in September 2000 that no consideration had been to personnel requirements for these warships.

Of course, it was never intended that the submarines would actually go to sea, whatever the Navy’s absurd pretensions that they would be the ultimate stealth weapons to protect fish. They were built for bribes, especially to the late Joe Modise (deleted as payback for his support of Thabo Mbeki’s candidature for the ANC presidency but also to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.)

I’ll be appearing on Carte Blanche this coming Sunday: tune intos M-Net at the usual time, 7pm.

Meanwhile, my latest letter to Business Day has been published this morning BUT the references to Nedbank have been edited out! Here’s the original letter in full:

SIR

Great news that Denel’s Shaun Liebenberg finally admits that Denel’s munitions business is insolvent (Denel CEO warns of munitions blowout, October 30). Denel should be closed forthwith instead of still more public money being poured down a drain.

I was asked by Amnesty International in 2002 to investigate whether Denel’s Swartklip plant was producing components for landmines in contravention of the Ottawa Convention. Shop stewards were adamant that these components were being produced under licence from PW Defence in England, and exported to Italy and Malaysia.

Before ranting at Business Day on the ethics of journalism, presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga and his boss might ponder why increasing numbers of South Africans “who once admired him no longer believe a word he (Mbeki) says”. (See “Mbeki did not ‘approve’ arrest” October 22).

Thabo Mbeki came to office hailed as “Mr Delivery”. Riots all over the country attest to the reality that he has failed dismally. We have 40% unemployment, 6-million South Africans will have died of AIDS-related diseases by 2010, and 8-million live in shacks. SA’s ranking in the United Nations human development index has plummeted 35 places since 1990.

Here’s a review of Eye on the Money from Erika Gibson that appeared in Beeld recently.

I missed the nuances in the Afrikaans – according to one person I know who read it, Gibson (an ex-Air Force colonel) could have been more objective – but I’m glad to see the book fomenting public debate.